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Intel - History
Israel's Nuclear Program

"In God we trust.
All others we monitor."

• Peres negotiated secret deal with France, to build a facility similar to their own
• Intelligence reports reached Kennedy that Israel was building an atom bomb, which Israel denied, claiming the site was for peaceful use only
• Ben Gurion was summoned to Washington DC by John F. Kennedy to discuss the danger of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East
• Kennedy insisted on inspections of Israel's nuclear facilities
• Mat 1961, US inspectors arrived in Israel, to visit the plant, but were deceived, for they were shown a fake control room on the ground floor...Israel had the actual control room six floors below ground, and all evidence of access to those floors had been concealed by quickly built brick walls

• Vanunu later revealed the trickery in the 1980s
• After Kennedy's assassination, the pressure on Israel disappeared, and Lyndon Johnson turned a blind eye
• In 1969, Richard Nixon and Golda Meier struck a deal that Israel's nuclear program could continue, so long as it was kept quiet, under the doctrine of "nuclear ambiguity"
• Peres defended the position by comparing it to using deception against someone who has come to kill you. Peres was unwilling to explain why he used deception against President Kennedy's nuclear inspectors

• Britain provided heavy water
• Norway provided heavy water
• France provided the nuclear reactor
• United States provided highly enriched uranium to be shipped to Israel (probably not until 1969, under Nixon, though this is a bit unclear)

• Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meier met with US President Richard Nixon, on September 1969, when she met at the White House
• Ground rules approving nuclear program changed, US agreed Israel could keep their nuclear arsenal, so long as the program was kept a secret

• China, Britain, France, Russia, and US were only ones who had publicly admitted they had such programs at the time

• Dimona employed thousands of people
• True purpose is true produce plutonium for nuclear bombs

• Somewhat to their surprise, they had found secularist allies, who did not share the vision of Rabbi Kook, but who were equally determined to hold on to every inch of occupied territory. People who were neither Kookists or observant Jews, such as the army chief of staff, Rafael Eitan, or the nuclear physicist and ultranationalist Yuval Ne'eman, were willing to work with the religious Zionists to secure the occupied territories for Israel. (The Battle for God, p. 280)

• Former Israeli Defense Minister Ezer Weizmann, Chaim Weizmann's son, began setting up operations in Zaire, including an Israeli nuclear missile testing facility.

• Vanunu left Israel, to live in Australia
• British journalist Peter Houdam flew to Australia to meet with and convinced Vanunu to go to London, to speak to the London Times about his story

• October 5, 1986, Sunday Times went to press, and Vanunu had vanished
• Smuggled in the trunk of a car, into their facilities, to help corroborate their story

• Israel denied the allegations in the Times piece
• Mossad now desperate to locate Vanunu

• Vanunu named, photographed, and smeared by London Mirror

• Sunday Mirror went to refute the story, and Vanunu's name was published in the story (the London Times agreed to not name their source)
• London Times had been the victim of an embarrassing scandal over their Hitler's bogus diaries, so they were being especially careful, and trying to double and triple-check everything, to avoid being embarrassed again
• Vanunu left for Rome, was captured by Mossad, and London Times still had not published...They had to decide whether to publish without their source available or not. They were not sure if he was captured or had run away because he was a con man, etc. They decided to publish.
• London Times published, and they believe that if they had not published it, probably Mordechai Vanunu would have been killed by Israel

• Prime Minister Shimon Peres instructed Mossad not to capture Vanunu on British soil
• Vanunu was lonely, desperate for female companionship, having lived "underground" for as long as he had. He wanted love.
• This was a classic "honeytrap"" operation
• Girl's name was Cindy
• Cindy lured him to Italy to see Italian opera, one of his great loves
• Also, fears over the Mossad coming after him, now he had been exposed by the London Mirror, made him nervous to stay in London

• Vanunu was overpowered, assaulted, drugged, kidnapped, smuggled while unconscious back to Israel by boat for a secret trial.
• Israel rushed a military vessel over to Italy
• This was an illegal act on foreign soil
• The kidnapping was on September 30, 1986
• To this day, the kidnapping remains an official state secret

• Denied Israel had kidnapped him on British soil (true, he had been kidnapped on Italian soil)
• Israel acknowledged Vanunu was in Israeli custody
• Israel never admitted to kidnapping him

• Found guilty of treason and espionage
• Sentenced to 18 years in jail
• His lawyer was Avigdor Feldman
• Viewed as a traitor
• His parents declared him "dead"

• Israel has the world's sixth largest nuclear arsenal, featuring small tactical nuclear weapons, nuclear landmines, and medium-range nuclear missiles launchable from air, land, or sea.
• Plutonium made in Dimona
• Nuclear weapons are made in Yodefat

• Nuclear weapons are stored at Zacariah and Eilabun
• Three nuclear submarines are stationed at Haifa
• Biologiral and chemical weapons facilities are located at Nes Ziona

• 43 people killed
• Israel claims the airplane was carrying flowers and perfume
• After six years and a Dutch Parliamentary inquiry, Israel finally admitted the plane had been carrying DNMP, a key component for sarin nerve gas

• The DNMP was bound for Israel's Biological and Chemical warfare facility at Nes Ziona
• The Nes Ziona facility is subject to no international inspection and reporting on its activities is subject to Israel's strict military censorship

• Environmental Minister of Israel held a press conference, and went out to the location with an instrument for measuring radioactivity
• Journalists were not allowed to bring their own instruments
• The minister proclaimed the site clean, and said the readings were below normal

• Israeli documentary alleged the press conference was a cover-up
• Documentary said a worker had been instructed to remove nuclear material before the press conference, and to bring in fresh soil and plant trees in the area
• The documentary also recorded that hundreds of Dimona workers developed cancer

• Led Israel's top secret weapons development program
• Wrote a fictionalized memoir
• Spoke on camera about his life with journalist Ronan Bergman (sp?)
• Israeli censors went down very hard on Yakov and the journalist

• Yakov went from a "hero to a zero" found guilty of betraying Israeli secrets, destroying his life
• Yakov had been a very loyal Israeli his entire life

• Israel refused to identify the gas used, but just claimed it was some type of "tear gas"
• This lack of knowledge prevented Palestinian hospitals from successfully treating the victims

• May have hoped the west would then pressure Israel, and peace in the Middle East would become more likely, which clearly never happened